Do the past and the future really exist?

Question

I know it might sound like a stupid question at first glance, but I've been thinking about this for a while now. It just seems to me that the only moment that even exists is the present, and the past is just what we call our collective memories, marks that were made on our brain in what the present used to be. This makes me wonder if time even exists or if it's just our way of organizing our thoughts. Could it just be a human/animal illusion?

I don't know if I'm communicating this effectively; it's pretty hard when the language itself relies on past/present/future tenses.

I just would like to know if anyone else has ever wondered about this.

Answer 1

Today was tomorrow yesterday and tomorrow will become yesterday day after tomorrow.  So, yes, the past and future exist as much as the present does.

Answer 2

You may need to find one of the mystic ways, but you are on track to finding The Way. I personally believe only the present moment truly exists our past is simply a trace left behind the future does not exist for at any moment you can die. where does the future lie then. The past and future are simply one with the present moment.

Answer 3

Past and future do not exist in the Now.

Past is a memory -- in the Now.

Future is a thought -- in the Now.

Only Now Is.

Answer 4

My dear member,  my answer is as follows:

I personally beleave in PRESENT, because this is only available in the capture of human being. hence utilize it with full presence of mind.

thanks,  yours, Harsh vardhan sharma

Answer 5

The past is dead, however, you are the culmination/living proof that the past did exist, otherwise you would not be here in the now fully grown to 14 years.

The future never comes, why, because it is always now/the present moment...... that is all there really is.

How we know about the future, in the past, when we planted a seed in the earth over a passage of time we know that the seed will mature in X days, Y years, but the future is only valid to describe the process.

Answer 6

Nothing exists, we are in the Matrix.

Answer 7

The only thing that exists is the present: NOW. Everything else is

a concept.

Answer 8

Start living in the present. Experience nowness.

Best regards.

Answer 9

Technically time is sometimes humanity invented to control what we do, so you could see it either way.

Answer 10

Language screws everything up. You only have this problem, because you can ask it!

Answer 11

Time is only an illusion that helps man/w understand is place in eternity. There is only the eternal moment.

Answer 12

i never really sat down to think about it but i would assume it exists. the past is simply what happened and if you know something happened, then it would be in the past.

but the future doesn't exist, because it can't exist till it happens. of course, we can always make predictions of the future, but predictions are not the same as it existing.

the present and the future cannot coexist at the same time.

your question is interesting and perhaps asking it as yahoo answers is not the most enlightening experience. you should discuss it with someone you know.

Answer 13

The past used to exist.  Now its gone.  The future does not yet exist.  Now is the only moment that matters.

Time is real.  The past and future are not simply concepts, they are tangible objects with known properties.

Answer 14

You should read some Eckhart Tolle, He says the same thing.  

Answer 15

my opinion is that the past existed

and the future never will.

and i agree with you that the present is what exists.

Answer 16

I agree. That's why God, Truth or Reality exists in the present which is forever new. Once thought remembers an experience of Reality and that thought is used to identify God again, consciousness won't be see it, because is completely and eternally new, where the past and the future don't exist. People talk about traveling in time, but that would have to be done in the present, because that's all that really exist. All that has happened and will ever happen is happening in an unending NOW.

Answer 17

I think about things like this all the time. In my opinion the future doesn't exist. The future is just an idea because it can't be real until it happens, but of course when it happens it's the present.

I think the past exists though. We were in the past and there's evidence of the past in history and with ourselves so I think that's evidence enough to say that it's real.

Time exists. Otherwise the world would have never evolved or never have existed at all really. That's how I see things anyway.

Answer 18

Yes they both provably exist within our consciousness.

The past is memory

The future is imagination

The now is you converting imagination into memory